Cong to launch 'jail bharo' agitation in UP

Lucknow, Nov 9 (UNI) Months after AICC president Sonia Gandhi's call, Congress would launch a week-long 'jail bharo' agitation in Uttar Pradesh from November 20 against the ''misrule'' of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

UP Congress president and former union minister Salman Khurshid here said the party would launch the agitation on a sector-wise basis.

''On November 27, we would launch 'Lucknow gherao' agitation...we will not limit ourselves to the 'gherao' (lay seize to) of Vidhan Bhawan building, but 'gherao' the entire district,'' he told reporters.

Congress has divided UP in eight sectors. From November 20 to November 24, party workers would organise the agitation in all the sectors. ''Aftar a gap of two days, we will 'gherao' Lucknow,'' he informed.

Charging the ruling dispensation with rigging the just-concluded urban local body elections, he said mayoral poll in Lucknow was controversial as 37,000 ballots were declared invalid.

''Despite their efforts, our candidate (Dr Mansoor Ahmed) lost by a margin of 9,000 votes.'' But at the same time, he gave a clean chit to State Election Commissioner A P Singh on the entire issue.

''We cannot blame a particular person as the Election Commission makes decisions on the basis of reports received from district authorities and election observers,'' he maintained.

Recently, Congress had charged the SEC with helping the ruling dispensation.

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